08-Feb-2002 -- To start off an early weekend I decided to go the N51 E6 confluence, the second nearest to where I live. Judging from the map it looked very much as if a small road leads directly to the point and in fact, it does. So, I hereby officially enter this confluence into the most-easily-reachable-confluence contest.

The confluence is located just north of the small town of Gangelt, close to the Dutch border. The point is about 20 meters off of a small road called Johanstrasse on a meadow. This meadow is guarded by an electric fence and although it didn't seem to be in working condition, I didn't feel like trying. Thus, I stayed outside at about 20 meter distance from the spot.

The first photo gives a view of the meadow as seen from the road, looking north. This is my first confluence not located in a wood so there are no trees blocking the view, but maybe except for the molehills there's nothing really catching the eye either.

Anyway, about 120 meters away from the confluence is a landmark supposedly marking the confluence. Looking closer, it is a globe on a pole cast in stone. On the pole there are inscriptions translating to: "Places approximately on 51Deg northern latitude: Erfurt/Germany, Lublin/Poland, Kiew/Russia, Aleute Islands, Calgary/Canada, Southampton/UK, Calais/France, Brussels/Belgium" and on the other side: "Places approximately on 6Deg longitude: Alesund/Norway, Apeldoorn/Netherlands, Esch/Luxemburg, Geneva/Switzerland, Toulon/France, Tuggurt/Algeria, Benin City/Nigeria, Queen-Maud-Land/Antarctica".

I wondered why the mark was so far off the spot because there's no obvious reason why it couldn't have been placed closer to the confluence or even right on it. I used the common German map datum (Potsdam) but the GPS showed the landmark still being off by about 30 meters.

Finally, it seems as if the people living there somehow don't like other people running around the place. While taking pictures of the landmark the police showed up. I assume someone must have called them. They didn't even exit their car when they saw the GPS, so if you're going to break into houses in that area, bring a GPS.